Is this really necessary?

No one denies chief executives should be well paid for their skills and experience, but it is the efforts of all employees which contribute to company profits, Labour’s Acting Leader David Parker says.

“Salaries paid to chief executives come at the expense of other working Kiwis and consumers.

“A new survey released today found New Zealand’s top executives now earn an average of

$1.4 million a year or 25 times more than the $55,000 the average Kiwi earns.

“It comes at a time when 43 per cent of all Kiwis did not get a rise in their pay rate in the prior year.

“The Prime Minister of New Zealand is well paid and rightly so. He earns around half a million dollars a year. Is it really necessary to pay CEOs many times more than John Key is paid? I find that hard to justify and I believe most New Zealanders do too.

“The CEO of the Warehouse Mark Powell said earlier this year that his $1.7 million salary troubled him when his frontline staff deserved better pay.